


The Matter Of The Firebird

by Not_You



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Animal Death, Animal Traits, Animal Transformation, Curse Breaking, Fairy Tale Retellings, Frottage, Gore, M/M, Magic, Shapeshifting, Temporary Character Death, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 03:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14251695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: A Jeevesian retelling of The Firebird.(Since not everyone in the world is a total fairytale/mythology wonk like me, cuddyclothes has pointed out that I should provide a bit of background: The FIrebird is a Slavic myth, and the version this is particularly based on isa popular Russian one.)





	The Matter Of The Firebird

Touching on the subject of the Firebird, I can only say that I never would have brought the thing off if not for Wolf. He’s lying by the fire right now, all curled into a ball. He says that certain old habits will never leave him more, and I say that he’s the best servant and best friend anybody has ever had, so dash his oddities, I’m keeping him. Rather more than ever now, but I’ll get to that. The whole thing started with my Aunt Dahlia (Queen Dahlia the Fearless to you, in all likelihood) as such things often do. My uncle, King Tom, has an orchard. The trees are the last of their kind, and they bear silver apples. I’m not much on trees or horticulture in general, but it’s a beautiful place and I’ve always liked it. So naturally, when my beloved old blood relation came gusting in bellowing about how the orchard had been robbed, I was all ears.

Aunt Dahlia has a long history of bolting in out of nowhere and demanding that her beloved nephew carry out quests and whatnot that her own son is too young to support. This is all over now, as Bonzo is quite grown up and has to slay his own monsters and rescue his own damsels, but before his majority it seemed like every other week I had to slog out and flail at something. Mostly I hired people to do the actual slaying, since years of fencing instruction have left me just as likely to stab my own foot as anything else, but there was still a lot of traveling and all-night vigils, and I was once nearly eaten by an Ettin, which I feel no one has taken seriously enough. This expedition at least didn’t seem particularly hard. I just had to sit out in the orchard with coffee and a packet of sandwiches and report back at dawn. To her credit, she had already tried one of Uncle Tom’s vassals, but staying up all night is a young man’s game, and Spode wasn’t quite up to it.

So, because I balk at disappointing the only aunt I actually like (those of you living on the western border under Queen Agatha the Terrible have my deepest sympathies), I camped out in the orchard that night, sipping my coffee and trying to stay awake. Of course, along about two in the morning, I really did drop off. Not that it mattered, because I don’t think I could have slept through the arrival of the Firebird if I had been awake for a week. It wasn’t that it was loud or anything. It just ghosted over the wall, its feathers the pure white of the hottest flame, with blue at the tips. It shone as bright as the moon, but that wasn’t what woke me, either. To this day, I don’t know what it was. I just couldn’t sleep in the presence of the Firebird. I’m not one of those sensitive, artistic types, but it was so beautiful that I felt like crying, somehow. In fact, I just stood there like a fool as it plucked one silver apple and flew away, only snapping out of it in time to make an ungainly leap and catch one glowing tail feather before it vanished into the night.

Aunt Dahlia rightly reproached me for a colossal fathead for failing to catch the bird, but did own that I had done much better than Spode. For his part, Uncle Tom was fascinated by that bally feather, and sent Spode out to find the bird. When weeks went by and he failed to return, Aunt Dahlia told me to saddle up and ride forth. I was none too pleased, but when Bertram’s dear old blood relation calls, he must answer. I headed out with my usual light traveling kit, on the back of a fiend in equine form. The nasty brute had been a gift from a neighboring nation, and so I had to ride it, despite its obvious ill intentions re: Bertram.

It didn’t take me as long to find Spode as you might think. I followed all recent sightings of the man to a three-way fork in the road, at the edge of a vast forest. A sign indicated that the traveller on the far right path would know hunger and thirst, that the one on the center path would die, though his horse would live, and that whoever took the left path would live, though his horse would die. Spode had given this all up as a bad business and had set up shop selling ladies’ underthings to a collection of odd little men who kept jawing on about the motherland and other such beastliness. I decided that he certainly wasn’t going to come back and would probably want to do away with the witness, and elected to go on. I was going to take the far right path, and now shudder to think what might have happened if I had. As it was, I paused and thought of what a dreadful way to go starvation would be, and that the sign certainly offered no guarantee of survival. With a guilty sigh, I took the left, telling my horse as we went that it certainly hadn’t been nice knowing it, but that I was still most awfully sorry.

I hadn’t even gotten too far before there was a suspicious rustling in the undergrowth. I went on, watching it all the time out of the corner of my eye, but still didn’t have time to react when a huge, black wolf burst onto the path. The horse screamed and threw me, and as I lay there trying to get my breath back, the wolf tore it to pieces and devoured it. I’m no coward, and certainly not sentimental, but I burst into tears. I had hated the poor brute, but I hadn’t thought he would go so violently. As I sat there making a perfect spectacle of myself, the wolf licked his chops and his ruff clean, and padded over to me. I wasn’t as frightened as I might have been, because the sign had said I would live, and I couldn’t imagine that he was the least bit hungry after all that horse. His yellow eyes gleamed with intelligence, and he licked my cheek as gently as my mother’s little spaniel had when I was a boy. 

“Please do not weep, little prince.” Talking animals were something that happened out in these wild woods, and he had already looked so very clever that I was hardly surprised. “Having taken your steed, I will serve in his stead. Whither does your Highness wish to go?”

“I’m looking for the Firebird. I took this road because it was the only one that I was sure wouldn’t kill me.”

“Ah,” said the wolf, “I believe I know the way, my prince.” He bowed down to the ground, I climbed onto his gleaming back, and he took off. 

The wolf ran faster that any twenty Thoroughbreds put together, and I was badly jounced until I found a comfortable seat, wrapped my legs around the barrel of his chest, and took two great fistfuls of his ruff, burying my face in it to keep the wind off. I don’t know how long it was before we stopped and I could raise my head, but it had been a long time, and I was covered in the wild scent of the wolf. 

“Your Highness,” the wolf said, “we are just outside the garden of the White King. It is he who keeps the Firebird in his mews.”

“That’s all well and good, Wolf, but how am I to get the bally thing?” I asked, swinging my legs and lightly thumping his sides with my heels, already comfortable on his back.

“You must climb the wall, secret yourself into the mews, and take the bird. It will come quietly, but do not touch the golden cage you will find beside it, or all will be lost. I shall await you here, your Highness.”

“Righto, Wolf.” I sighed, hopping off of his back and heading for the wall. 

I detest having to pinch things, and yet it seems that I get railroaded into that as fast as the more traditional slaying wheezes. Still, getting into the mews wasn’t as hard as it could have been. The Firebird even seemed happy to see me, walking onto my arm as easy as anything. I even remembered what Wolf told me, no matter what anyone says, but on the way out I tripped over some pestilential bucket left out by some miserable excuse for a falconer, and threw my hand out to catch myself. I did, but I had grabbed one of the bars of the massive golden cage, and was resigned rather than surprised when the place erupted in guards. They pounced on me and dragged me up before the White King. 

I came empty-handed out of the gates the next morning, to meet Wolf as he appeared out of the woods like a living shadow, dew beaded like crystals on his coat. “Good morning, your Highness,” he said. “I see that we have met with a setback.”

I nodded, and flopped down into the wet grass beside him. “I did what you told me to, Wolf, but I tripped and touched the blasted cage anyway and now I’ve got to pinch some bloody magic horse before I can get the bird back, and apparently the White King and Uncle Tom are chums, and I could’ve had it for the asking.” I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

“Was he referring to the Star of Illuria, sir?”

“Lovely white mare, some of the original fey blood? Fast as the wind and smart as the proverbial whip?”

“That would form a fairly accurate description, your Highness.”

I leaned against him and buried my face in his ruff. “Oh, Wolf. I’ve got to find a way to steal her! I don’t think I’d be capable of stealing a normal horse, let alone a magical one.”

“I may be able to lend some assistance, your Highness,” he murmured.

And that’s how it was that I found myself in the stables of the Red King at four o’clock in the morning. Wolf had told me where the stables were, how to get into them, and that the horse followed the same rules as the Firebird: she would come quietly, as long as I didn’t touch the jeweled bridle. What he didn’t tell me was that it was nearly pitch black in the stables and that the one I was supposed to touch was hung right up next to the one I wasn’t and before I knew it I had a handful of cold rocks and was staring down the guard captain’s halberd. As with most palace guards, he had no sense of humor, and threw me into a cell until the king could wake up and be bothered to deal with me. 

I stretched out and made myself as comfortable as I could. That lasted until I got hungry, and I was just on the verge of banging on the bars and damn the consequences when a huge black snake crawled in through a hole I hadn’t noticed, dragging a sack in his mouth. I stared, and then stared some more, positively agog as it turned into Wolf, every gleaming black hair in place.

“Good evening, your Highness. I have often found the culinary arrangements in dungeons to be somewhat lacking, and so took the liberty of bringing you some food.”

I hugged him around the neck in delight. “Wolf, I didn’t know you could turn into a snake!”

“There are a great many things you do not know about me, your Highness.” He sounded sad, so I settled down to scratching him behind the ears, under which attention he rumbled with delight as I investigated the sack with my free hand. Somewhere he had managed to acquire sandwiches, a bottle of burdock, and several teacakes.

“You are a wonder, and a prince among beasts. Have you eaten?”

“Rabbits, your highness.”

“All well and good, but have your tithe of the sandwiches, if you like.”

He delicately took a chicken sandwich in his teeth, flipping it up and swallowing it whole with that neat, canine flick of the head. “Thank you, your Highness. I was ever fond of chicken.”

“I can’t see you as hen thief, Wolf.”

“I am not, your Highness. It isn’t proper for wild beasts to eat tame flesh more than very occasionally.”

“H’m” I said, tucking into my sandwiches. “I didn’t know there was a rule about that.”

“There is a rule about everything, your Highness.” He sounded sad again, so I hugged him around the neck.

“You’ve obviously got some secret sorrow in that noble breast of yours, Wolf.”

“I do, your Highness.”

I sighed, and kissed the top of his head. “If I can ever help with it, let me know.”

“I will, your Highness.”

After dinner, there wasn’t much to talk about. Wolf assured me that the Red King was a passionate man but not a cruel one, and that at worst, I would only have to go pinch something else. Feeling a little better about things, I curled up on the pallet next to Wolf and drifted off.

I woke because of the cold before the guards came to drag me up before the king. Wolf had vanished in the night, taking the sack and all the warmth with him. Shivering, I got up and arranged myself as best I could, just in time for the guards to show up and get on with it.

My interview with the Red King worked out better than I thought it would. It turned out that we had been in school together, and he hadn’t changed a bit. Within half an hour he had talked me ‘round to abducting some bally princess in exchange for the horse, which I could then go back and exchange for the bird. I naturally balked at his, but he promised me that he would be as nice to her as he could possibly be, and more importantly, that he would send her on home if she really hated his kingdom so very much. I was becoming quite relaxed when the beast let me in on the thing that made the whole plan dangerous, inadvisable, and nothing that a really thoughtful person would ask of a friend.

The princess was the only daughter of the Black King, not only a formidable person with a penchant for grisly executions, but one with such an antipathy to me that he had vowed to declare war on Uncle Tom’s kingdom should I ever ascend the throne. No one paid him any mind, since I’m rather low in the succession and wouldn’t have it any other way, but he still wasn’t going to take kindly to my making off with the apple of his eye.

Of course, Bingo (among royalty, nicknames stick like glue, don’t ask me why) pulled rank like the blighter he was and always had been, and sent me packing with no choice but to try and get the girl. Wolf was waiting for me outside the gates, sitting at attention, his clear yellow eyes on me as the sentries watched him nervously. I went to him and he licked my hand in greeting. “Good morning, your Highness. I trust you have breakfasted?”

“Quite nicely, Wolf. They want to send me to my death on a full stomach.”

“Your Highness?”

“We have to go to the palace of the Black King and abscond with the man’s only daughter. It’s shady and low and I don’t like it one bit.”

“Even so, your Highness, we may yet be able to turn the situation to our advantage.”

I sighed, and clung to Wolf’s fur as he galloped for miles and miles to the north, towards the forbidding spire of the Black King. It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get into once we were there, and had lovely gardens. All the same, it was an oppressive place, and sneaking up a narrow spiral staircase to steal the beloved ewe lamb of the man who maintains such an establishment is a nerve-wracking business. I reached what Wolf had told me would be her room without incident, softly opened the door, and discovered that there are worse things than dark and forbidding. The revolting array of pink, itty bitty precious little crystal fairies, and other nonsense was too hideous to describe, and the girl standing in the middle of it like a frightened deer enveloped in a suspiciously flimsy nightdress wasn’t much better. It’s not that she wasn’t pretty, in a wide-eyed, drooping kind of way. She was just obviously the exact girl who belonged to this room, and the room was obviously the product of a deranged and whiffling mind.

“Well,” I said, and then paused to find further words. “Look,” I said at last, “the Red King is dying of love for you but will let you go home if you don’t like his kingdom, so be a sport and let me carry you off.” 

She just stood there, and blinked goopily at me. I was running out of time, so I gritted my teeth and flung her over my shoulder, legging it back down all those stairs. The situation was the same here as elsewhere, and being so pressed for time had probably worked in my favor, seeing as letting the girl take anything from her room would have been the same story with the cage and the bridle all over again. As it was, I bolted down the lawn, boosted the girl up over the wall, and scrambled over to help her down. 

Of course she shrieked when she saw Wolf, but he was so mild-mannered and polite, and licked her hand in greeting so prettily that we were soon off, my cloak wrapped around her shoulders to make up for how little protection her nightgown was. I asked Wolf if two wasn’t too many, but he said the load had merely gone from “featherlike” to “noticeable” and that I shouldn’t concern myself. 

As I had had a very long day, I fell asleep with my head on Madeline’s shoulder (she told us her name, of course), and didn’t wake up until we were at Bingo’s castle again, only to find that the silly beazel had convinced herself that she was in love with me and was fairly howling with grief. I tried to talk her round, telling her what an ass I was, building Bingo up, and finally mentioning that she had only known me for about eight hours, most of which I had spent asleep. It was no good. She thought I was modest and brave and wonderful. To make matters worse, she believed in love at first sight. Now, the Wooster will is iron, but you’ve seen what salt water does to iron. She got so miserable that I started crying right along with her.

Wolf sighed. “Your Highness?”

“If you’ve got a plan Wolf, out with it.”

“I merely thought that I might take the semblance of the princess, your Highness.”

“…You can do that?”

“I can, sir. It will, however, cost the lady her nightdress.”

Wolf produced some pretty gold pins as if by magic, which it almost certainly was, and under his direction, we got the cloak pinned around Madeline in a remarkable counterfeit of a rather nice frock. She was then able to pull her nightgown out through the armhole in complete modesty and pass the thing to Wolf. In far greater deference to her feelings than his, he ducked behind a tree and made the transformation. When he came back out I felt as though my tongue had been glued to the roof of my mouth. 

I’ve said before that Madeline was pretty, and so she is. Walking with Wolf’s feral grace and with his wicked intelligence burning in those big, blue eyes, Madeline was a lot more than pretty. Completely dumbfounded, I shook my head to stop staring and wished Wolf the best of luck. As he went, I wondered if he had ever been human. Such things do happen. Madeline and I walked on for a while, until Wolf leapt out of the underbrush, panting in a mischievous canine laugh. He straightened right up as soon as we were looking at him, of course, and I only permitted myself a small smile as I helped Madeline onto this back.

Later, a tale went around of how the Red King’s bride had seduced him like a demoness and then turned into a massive wolf just when things were about to get good, howling and leaping away over the rooftops in a way no natural wolf could possibly do. I figured it served Bingo right, blackmailing a chap into stealing maidens for him. It might make him think in future. Wolf told us he had opened the gate of Star’s paddock, and sure enough, she appeared behind us like a star in truth, gleaming in the twilight. We waited for her, and I stroked her nose when she caught up, delighted to see her again. She’s a dear creature, and I was already fond of her then. 

When we reached the white king’s palace, we went through the same thing again, since Star looked sadder to leave us than Madeline had been. Wolf opened the Firebird’s cage after scaring the White King’s grooms half to death, and it swooped out of the sky to land on my shoulder, trilling delightedly and preening my hair. I was riding Star then, to spare Wolf. We rode for days, and when we finally came to the fork in the road that had started it all, we were nearly done in.

It was a sunny summer day when we stopped near the edge of the forest. Wolf plunged back in to hunt us some fresh meat, Madeline went off to bathe in a secluded stream, and I stretched out under a tree and went to sleep, Star grazing peacefully and the Firebird asleep on a branch above me, its glow slightly dimmed. And here I must pass the pen to Wolf, because I’m out of the story for a while.

_I returned from the forest with a brace of pheasants to find my master dead. He lay still under the tree, the blood pooled beneath him, flowing from deep, red gashes. He had been dismembered like a sacrificial god-king, his eyes still serenely closed. In the blank dispassion that protects the mind as shock does the body, I saw that his murderer had stolen both Star and the Firebird. When I called for the Princess and received no answer, I had no choice but to assume the murderer had carried her off as well. I could see by Star’s tracks that he had bound her in cold iron and dragged her away by main force. Rage and grief began to trickle through the icy wall of shock. I could not put a name to the acrid, cloying reek that stung my nose, but as I crawled keening to my master to lick the blood from his white face, I vowed to trace it to the end of the world._

_If the Lion is the king of beasts, the Wolf is a grim barbarian lord. I had so far become a beast that I nearly began the only sacrament of the Wolves, the Eating of the Beloved Dead. I still shudder to think what would have happened had I not overheard two hopeful crows in an adjacent tree. In happier days I had been something of a magician, and one of the first things a sensible student of magic learns is the language of birds. They go everywhere and see everything without being remarked upon, and the gregarious species are incurable gossips._

_“Oo, I hope he’ll finish soon. I’m half-starved.”_

_Her companion sighed. “Don’t count on it. The big fella looks pretty busted up, and if he really cares for the poor thing, he won’t let us have a scrap.”_

_“Hah. What he wants is the Water of Life.”_

_“He’d need Water of Death, first.”_

_“You’re right, with the young gentleman hacked up thataway.”_

_Listening to this conversation, I slunk away from my master, finding a crow’s nest. After asking after the lady of the house and finding her to be the crow who knew so much about the Waters, I thumped my shoulder against the tree until an indignant little black nestling fell into my jaws. Once I had him secure, I trotted back to sit under his mother’s perch._

_“Madame crow!” I croaked, only slightly muffled by her son’s feathers. “I need the Waters of Death and Life, and I will eat this nestling if you don’t bring them here at once.” She squawked in dismay, and flew off. I reassured the nestling that I would not really eat him, and set him on a rock to wait. We had not long, since the crows of the Wild Woods fly as fast as I could run._

_“I’ve brought the Waters!” she called, landing again with two gourds in her beak, one marked with the glyph for Death and the other with the one for Life._

_“Throw them to me.”_

_She did, and I quickly wrung her son’s head from his neck. Her anguished cry broke my heart, but I made no sign, quickly putting the head back in place and sprinkling him with the Water of Death, which fused him back together perfectly, the join as secure as it had been at birth. The Water of Life revived him, and I set him onto a low branch._

_“Madame Crow,” I said, “I regret the driving necessity for my brutality. I passed a dead cow on my way here. She still has her eyes.”_

_Crows love eyeballs, and will take good carrion in restitution for almost any slight, wrong-doing, or bad fright. She took her son in her claws and flew home, passing over my head again almost immediately on her way to the carcass. I hoped very much that the choicest bits would go to her, and went to my master, carefully putting him back in order and sprinkling the Water of Death as I went until he was whole again. Nothing could be done for his tattered clothes, so I pulled them off, trying not to think of how lovely they had been._

I awoke damp and as naked as the proverbial babe, to Wolf licking all over my face and crying softly like a puppy. Surprised at this display of emotion, I sat up. “Wolf, whatever is the matter? And where are my clothes?” 

He told me, and I confess it made me go cold all over. I shivered, and climbed onto his back again, wrapping around him and clinging with all four limbs, doing my best to bury them in his warm fur. I suppose being resurrected is a bit like being born. I felt so alive it was almost raw, and fearfully tired at the same time. Luckily, it was a very warm day. Wolf told me to hold on and ran off on Star’s trail. I fell asleep on his back, clinging automatically with the ease of long practice. 

I dried out as we ran, and the warm sun felt good on my back. Coming up into a light doze, I became aware of just how soft Wolf’s fur was. And here’s where things get a little embarrassing. I became a little too aware of how nice his fur felt, if you get my drift, and dreamed uneasy half-dreams about men and wolves. I was glad and sorry at the same time to wake up in a cave somewhere, on a carefully made bed of branches and leaves. I still hadn’t a stitch on, and actually blushed when Wolf came in, bearing a neat package in his jaws.

“Here, your Highness.” He laid it down in front of me. “I regret being unable to find clothing suitable to your station, but these should prove serviceable.”

“Er, thanks, Wolf.” 

He sensed my discomfort and quietly left the cave while I pulled on a pair of the tight leather breeches that foresters wear to keep the thorns off. Thankfully, the inner seams were laced rather than sewn, and I let them gape despite how disreputable it looked, because I wouldn’t otherwise be comfortable in the heat. Other than that, there was a long sleeveless tunic and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Wolf had even gotten me a faded blue homespun cloak for when it cooled off in the evening. I picked my careful way out of the cave, still barefoot. Looking around, I recognized the country as bordering my own, and blinked. Wolf was sitting on a rock looking beautiful and ferocious, apparently ready to spring on anyone foolish enough to intrude.

“Wolf?”

He looked over at me, the feral set of his shoulders softening. “Yes, my prince?” The more familiar address warmed my heart, and despite our rather dire situation, I smiled.

“I can’t go home yet, Wolf. I haven’t got the bird, and I have to at least make sure Star and Madeline are all right.”

His ears twitched. “Your Highness, while you were… indisposed, I caught the scent of the man responsible. I believe has taken our associates back to your home to claim the credit for your work.”

“Your work, more like! Who is the blackguard?”

“I arrived too late to see a face to match the scent, but I will know him when we find him.”

I thought for a moment. “Hm. What does he smell like?”

Wolf blinked at me. “Your Highness?”

“Don’t look at me like that, I’ve an excellent nose. I’m sure it’s not a patch on yours, but try me.”

His ears twitched the way they did when he was amused, and he hopped down to stand beside me. “Very well. Close your eyes, my prince. Sight can only distract you.” I supposed he was right and did as I was told. “You’ve eaten oranges, your Highness?”

“Occasionally. Are you thinking of the sweet or the sour ones?”

“Sweet, and just beginning to be overripe.”

“You mean the beastly ones that are too old to taste good but fresh enough to look all right until you actually eat them?”

“Exactly, your Highness. That heavy, rancid sweetness that clings to the palate like old blood.”

“Lord, that sounds like Spode’s pomade. What else?”

“Have you ever startled a skunk, sir? Think of a similar scent, but much fainter and without the burning.”

I thought carefully, and tasted the scent he described in my mind for a long time before it came to me. Spode, sweaty after a hard day’s ride, was even less congenial to the nose than the rest of us. “Spode!” I cried. “Disgraceful! He might be a brute, but he’s supposed to be a knight, dash it all!”

“Indeed, my prince.” Wolf’s eyes glowed with wrath. After that, there was nothing for it but to head home and denounce the blighter. Naturally, things turned out to be more complicated than that. As we slunk into the orchard, I felt very strange, and leaned forward to murmur this insight into Wolf’s left ear.

“I say, Wolf. It’s a rummy thing, sneaking into one’s own home.”

“Quietly now, your Highness,” he murmured, and I clammed up just as a few of the guard passed us. They were mostly new, and probably wouldn’t believe me if I identified myself. So we lurked, and waited, and finally made our way to way to the central courtyard, where there was a wedding going on. 

I must say, I have never made a more dramatic entrance anywhere than I did then, riding up the aisle on Wolfback. My memory becomes slightly hazy after that, because at the sight of Spode I could feel Wolf trembling under me, and I thought of how he had been crying when I returned to life, and I lost my temper for a bit. I have been described as “easygoing to the point of noodliness”, but I have my moments. 

I apparently leveled my sword at him and bellowed, “SPODE!” as Wolf revealed his whole, gleaming arsenal of white teeth. 

Madeline fainted dead away, and I have to give Spode some credit, since he did catch her before she hurt herself. Still, I wasn’t quite calm again until I had given Spode a sound thrashing, taking ruthless advantage of his flat-footed shock at my being alive. I was just beating him about the shoulders with the flat of my sword when Madeline revived and threw herself in the way, nearly getting brained. Naturally, with a lady on the field I withdrew arms.

Through a lot of hysterical sobbing, I got that she had apparently developed feelings for the horrible beast, who had never hurt her and had apparently been having nightmares about chopping this Wooster to bits. I didn’t warm one bit until Wolf took me aside and murmured that if I played my cards right I could let the wedding take place and be free of my unwanted admirer. She did say that Spode hadn’t harmed a single hair on her head, so I supposed she would be safe enough with him. After all that, I felt quite cheerful. I whistled as I strolled into the kitchen with Wolf at my heels, and only after stuffing myself and having a hot bath did I bother to contemplate the future.

Wolf took to valeting me (despite his lack of hands) with amazing ease, frightening off the footman who had formerly been pressed into my service. It was just as well, since we had never liked each other anyway. Conferring with Uncle Tom, who was very sorry about the whole thing, we decided to send Madeline and Spode off into exile together. Somewhere sunny and incredibly far away. I will freely admit to creeping about the castle with Wolf sticking to me like my shadow until they left. Discretion is the better part of valor, and all that, and I wouldn’t put it past Spode to merely act like a reformed character. Besides, Wolf is excellent company. 

I spent about a month after their departure recovering from the harrassments of my journey, regularly riding Star and visting the Firebird in its silver cage. It wasn’t entirely happy, but it didn’t complain. Slivers of green apple seemed to cheer it up, and I spent many happy hours using Wolf as a luxurious couch while we listened to the Firebird sing. Wolf had a curious, drowsy way of blinking his great, wild eyes, and sometimes he really did fall asleep, only to be woken by his own harmonious howling, a keening counterpoint that made me think of long winter nights in the northern mountains. He would always yawn cavernously and apologize, scratching one ear with his hind foot before fully mastering himself again.

We were able to carry on in this easy manner for a month’s time, when the Firebird fell ill. My uncle did his best for it, and sent for what seemed like every ornithological specialist in the world, but it just kept fading away. Its glow dimmed, and as it lost feathers it began to flicker alarmingly. Soon it had no interest in food of any kind, not even tempted by one of the precious silver apples, sliced paper thin and arranged before it on a silver tray. It never sang anymore, only letting out a dispirited cheep when I went to visit it, putting its poor ragged head through the bars for me to stroke. One night, when it was so wretched that I had wept over it in the privacy of my room, I woke up in the small hours. Naturally, I decided to go check on the bird.

The castle is a beautiful place by night. On the route I took to the Firebird there are these high, slotted windows that aren’t much on their own, but they’re set so close together that they let in lance-like shafts of moonlight and anything moving along the corridor shimmers from black to silver and back again. I padded along it barefoot and wrapped in a brocade dressing gown that usually swishes like anything but must have been somehow magically silent that night. I say so because Wolf is nearly impossible to sneak up on, but I managed it that night. Not that I was immediately aware of it, since what I saw beside the Firebird’s cage was a massive, mother-naked man whose skin glowed like alabaster. 

He was working intently at the beastly, complicated latch of the cage door with huge, dexterous hands, absently tossing his head to shake a lock of sleek black hair out of his eyes. Before I could say anything, he noticed the Firebird noticing me, and turned to me, raising a finger to his lips. He had Wolf’s dark eyes and the same kind of coiled stillness. He looked at me very seriously for an endless moment that was like a dream, and then went back to work. I came closer, and saw a spark of lightning jump from his fingertip to the latch, making it click open. He reached into the cage and tenderly lifted the Firebird, turning to me and placing it in my arms. Even emaciated, it was a lot to hold, a large armful, but fearfully light. I was almost afraid that its frantically beating heart would shatter its fragile bones.

I looked to the stranger again, and he transformed into Wolf. “Thank you for your silence, my prince,” he murmured. “Come, down to the orchard.” 

I followed him, my head spinning with questions that I dared not ask until we were outside. His shadow led the way through the trees to a favorite secluded bench of mine, where I sat, the Firebird in my lap. “What your Higness just saw is my true form. I can still attain it for five minutes at a time, but were I to speak, or should any human being speak to me while I am in that form, I should die instantly.” Thinking of how close I had come made me go cold and trembly all over, and I was glad I was sitting down.

“Lord, Wolf!”

“I knew I could trust you, sir,” he murmured, licking my cheek. I blushed, feeling like a silly ass, and looked down at the Firebird.

“Wolf, what are to do for it?”

“I believe we need only provide moonlight, sir, and a gentle push over the wall to freedom.”

“Uncle Tom’s going to be pipped, you know,” I said, stroking ragged feathers.

“My prince, if you wish—“

“I’m not saying that I care, Wolf.” I moved so that the moonlight fell more fully upon the bird. “How long do you suppose we ought to wait?”

“I have no idea, your Highness.” 

And so we sat. And watched. And waited. By and by the Firebird seemed to perk up a bit. It was a bit like the sun coming up, all slow and sneaky until somehow it’s suddenly broad day. Moonlight and fresh air put it right in about fifteen minutes. I gave it a little kiss on the head and let it preen Wolf for a bit, then gave it an apple and boosted it over the wall. I was crying again as I watched it fly off like a second moon, but I was some of the happiest I have ever been in my life. Wolf stood beside me, and didn’t say a word when I knotted one hand into the ruff of fur at his neck. We were silent for a long time, because there was nothing to say. I finally wiped my eyes and laughed.

“Oh, I’m so glad we did that, no matter how much trouble we get into!”

“It is that greatness of heart that makes me love you so well, my prince.” He licked my hand and looked up at me.

“You—“ I thought of Wolf really being human and stammered a bit.

“Yes. And because of that, I must ask you to release me as well, sir.”

“Release you?” I crouched, as I customarily did to speak to him for extended periods.

“Please, my prince,” he whispered, obviously in great distress. “You must not question, and I must not explain.” He licked my face again, whining miserably.

I sighed. “I’m not going to like this at all, am I?”

“You are not, my prince. I am sorry.”

“What do I have to do?”

It turned out that I had to stab him through the heart under the full moon, and after a lot more crying on both sides, he was splayed out under me as I lined up my dagger with his heart. What they don’t put in the stories is that lethal cursebreaking is a risky business. For every success, there’s a pile of dead animals, half-animals, and gibbering lunatics, and I didn’t like our odds. But no one can last forever in a shape not their own, and I knew now that Wolf would rather die than lose his mind, as is the eventual fate of every trapped shapeshifter. 

So I looked into his dark eyes and said, “I love you, Wolf.” as I brought the dagger down. 

There was a horrible cracking sound, and a kind of gurgling wheeze, then silence. I stared for a long time, and then pressed a kiss to his face and walked like a jointed doll down to the ornamental creek to wash the blood from my face and hands. I recognized the feeling from when my parents had died, of a huge wail of grief slowly building down in the pit of my stomach, getting ready to burst up through the shock. At least he hadn’t gone mad.

I scrubbed with icy water and went back, leaving my dressing gown and the top half of my pyjamas behind me and making disjointed plans for Wolf’s funeral. I thought he might approve of a pyre, but got no further than that because instead of the huge black carcass I had left, there was something smaller, gleaming white on the grass. Running over and falling to my knees, I found Wolf as human as my own self and breathing slowly and steadily. There was a bright scar over his heart, like a star, and I wept and laughed over it, running my hands over his blessedly intact chest and his face and his sleek, civilized hair.

“Wolf,” I whispered, almost afraid to speak. “Wolf, first of servants, best of friends.” I kissed his lips softly. “Wake, beloved.”

“Odd.” He murmured, feeling his chest. “I was expecting Purgatory.”

I threw back my head and laughed, tumbling him around on the grass and nipping him until he had to believe that he was alive. Pinning me on my back with my wrists by my head, he laughed soundlessly down at me. “Tell me, my prince. Did I imagine what you said to me?”

“Not if you heard me tell you that I love you.”

“Oh.” It was finally his turn to blush. “I did hear that.” 

He shivered, and licked at my mouth, which was nice if a bit dribbly, and then seemed to slowly remember how to kiss, holding me down in the soft grass and devouring my mouth. Most of his weight was on me, and when he pressed his thigh between mine I whimpered, everything below the waist shamelessly and automatically flexing to rub against him. In fact, we didn’t get any further than all that rubbing business, which I will say is delightful, and entirely underrated. Wolf was clumsy, not used to his hands or his mile-long human legs, and he whimpered like a puppy as I showed him how to use them both. I covered his scar in kisses, and I think it some testament to the intensity of the moment that Wolf’s usual good sense deserted him and he let me fall asleep in the grass, all tangled up with him. A gardener found us in the morning, and the whole thing was dashed awkward. Wolf rose majestically to the occasion, the effect only slightly ruined by his not remembering his real name.

Which brings us to the fireside in autumn, with my strange and beautiful man curled up on the floor. He still smells like the forest, if I nestle into the side of his neck and breathe deeply, and he thinks I don’t hear him when he howls at the moon. Personally, I wouldn’t have him any other way.


End file.
